Cracks
by masqueradingasawriter
Summary: Humans are by nature greedy, selfish and cruel. Aren't they? How truly ironic that he should begin to doubt this now, after all these centuries, while in the service of the Watchdog of the Queen (or, Sebastian encounters a different side of humanity). Short chapters, canon compliant, no pairings. Fluff-ish and angst-ish.
1. The Butler, Enlightened

**A/N:** I'm finally back! I am so, so sorry for seeming to let this story drop, I went travelling for ages in the USA and I ended up having to put everything on hold. But I've returned now and I'm looking forward to continuing with this. Looking back over it I wasn't happy with the structuring and some of the chapters, so it's gone through some reworking. Now I'm trying to structure it so that it's all in chronological order, following Sebastian's gradual discovery of a gentler humanity, so don't worry if a chapter or two vanishes-it'll be back! As before, this is going to be a series of oneshots detailing Sebastian's encounters with characters from throughout the manga, beginning and ending with Ciel. Don't worry if you haven't read the manga (but you really should, I think it's better than the anime!), most characters will still be the same.

 **The Butler, Enlightened**

Almost six months into his contract and it already feels like the longest he's ever served. It's the rhythm of it, selecting tea leaves, matching silks and tweeds, baking scones and cakes and little dainties. A _valse_ on the piano. Making beds and drawing baths. He has been many things in his long life, but never before has he been a butler.

"Sebastian!"

Ah, his master calls. It is rare that he is given a name. To so many masters his name has been _you. You. Devil._

"-listening to me? I said we need to stop by Nina Hopkins's, it's been a while since I've bought Lizzie anything. I suppose a new hat or something will keep her happy."

Sebastian slots his charming smile into place. "I have no doubt that Lady Elizabeth will be delighted with whatever you choose for her, my lord."

His young master sighs uncomfortably. "Can't you choose it? You know I'm no good at clothes."

"If you would like me to do so, I shall of course oblige."

The Earl makes a grumpy sound and marches in the direction of the tailor's. Sebastian smirks slightly. Choosing hats for little girls with hands that have been gloved in blood. He's lived countless lives and yet he's never been asked for that. Neither had he ever been ordered to make dinner by hand or bathe a child or chase away nightmares before his current master. It's a slower kind of dance than those who have gone before. It took him a little while to adjust his tempo, but now that he's settled into it he finds that he does not mind it much.

On the corner before Hopkins', his little lord comes to a surprised halt, his eye fixed on something across the road. Sebastian lets his gaze follow his master's and it lands on a street urchin, a muck-encrusted road-sweeper only a little younger than the aristocratic and dandified child at his side. As they watch, the filth cracks around a gap-toothed smile and the boy laughs the kind of ringing laugh that comes from a place of real joy. There is a scrap of black shadow prancing and springing around him, which resolves itself into the shape of a bright-eyed black puppy. He feeds it a crumb of something and then crouches down for it to play tug with the sleeve of his jacket. The boy beams and praises the animal and pets its ragged fur. Sebastian's expression sours a little at the sight of the dog, but Earl Phantomhive looks caught.

"Puppy for you, m'lord?"

An equally grimy woman calls across the street to them, her voice a hoarse scrape on the morning air. To Sebastian's surprise, his young master steps out to cross the road towards her.

"A fine young lord like yourself will be wanting a fine dog to match when you're off hunting and all. I'll make you a good price for him, sir, you can be sure I will!"

Her desperation is embarrassing. Her soul is yellowing, easier prey by the day, and repels him as much as if it had been shining and pure. The demon's lip curls with elegant disdain, half a smirk and half a sneer.

"I-," begins his master, uncharacteristically awkward. Ordinarily he would brush off such advances as coldly as if they were flies. Before he can get any further, however, there is a scream of protest from the dirty child who had been playing so cheerfully.

"You can't have him! Sooty ain't going to no lord! He won't like it with you," the child finishes sulkily, staring at his master with such uninhibited aggression one would think his young lord had outright snatched the dog and spat on its owner.

"Ned," snaps the woman fearfully, giving the boy's ears a harsh boxing. "Don't you dare raise your voice to his lordship like that!"

"It's all right," Earl Phantomhive tells her curtly. "Sebastian."

Baffled, he draws the heavy bag of coins from his pocket and places it in his master's outstretched hand.

"Here," he says coolly, dropping fat gold coins into the woman's claws. It's probably more money than she's ever seen in her life.

"No!" shrieks the boy, tears slicing white streaks through the dirt on his cheeks. He squeezes the puppy protectively to his thin chest as the woman tries to wrestle it away. "He's mine, you can't have him, you _can't!_ "

"Agreed," the young master replies, as though he were discussing new products with the fledgling Funtom Company board. "Keep the dog. The money too. Be sure you look after him."

With that, Earl Phantomhive turns on his finely-shod heel and marches away, the dumbstruck woman and grinning boy and wagging puppy staring after him. Sebastian catches up with a few long strides, snatching the coin purse out of the air when his master throws it carelessly over his shoulder at him and tucking it securely back in his pocket. They walk past a few more shops in a full, expectant silence, until the demon can hold his tongue no more.

"That was...kind."

"Was that an insult?" his young master asks snidely. "I am far from kind, you know that. It was a quick way to have her stop bothering me, and it's not as though I can't spare the money."

"Nonetheless," the demon persists tauntingly. "You did them both a kindness."

"I can only imagine what I might have done if the former earl had tried to sell my dog to a stranger like that," says his little master idly. "I didn't leave the manor much, but I wasn't alone. He was always by my side."

The Earl's face is downcast for a moment, before turning suddenly rosy with embarrassment at having revealed so much. He jerks away from his memories and strides away down the street with a scowling order to follow.

Sebastian blinks. The dog, a black dog. His namesake.

As they leave, he glances back a moment. Perhaps his name is not so great an insult as he had thought.

.

.

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 **A/N:** Thank you so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed it! Please do leave a review of what you think of new-and-improved chapter one: The Butler, Enlightened!


	2. The Butler, Surprised

**A/N:** Thank you so much to my lovely reviewers, it's so encouraging! Next up we have everyone's favourite gardener :)

 **The Butler, Surprised**

It is very late.

It is very late and no one but him should be awake, but a dull glow is spilling under his door from the direction of the servants' hall. Sebastian considers ignoring it and continuing to ink careful entries into the accounts ledger on his desk, but the other servants are yet new and if they've a thief on their hands his young lord will not thank him for the trouble.

With a resigned sigh he sets down his pen and starts for the hall with silent steps. There is a figure hunched over the hall's rough wooden dining table, glaring tearfully down onto the open page of a book that lies in a ruddy pool of candlelight.

"Finnian?"

The boy startles at the unfamiliar syllables of his new name. He wears it uncertainly still, the way he does the gardener's jacket the young master had made for him last week. Sebastian cocks an eyebrow.

"Reading at this hour?"

Quite suddenly Finnian's face crumples. With an ugly sob, the tears overspill into rivers and in moments the dim room is crowded with the noise of his bawling. Sebastian stares. He's somewhat taken aback. It has been a while since he last saw a human cry this close; the young master does it so rarely.

"My goodness, what a fuss," he murmurs with gentle irritation, whipping a neat white handkerchief from his pocket and passing it to the distraught boy. "Clean yourself up immediately. Such a state is hardly befitting of a servant of the Phantomhive household."

He winces as Finny blows his nose messily into the proffered handkerchief.

"I c-can't, Mr Sebastian!"

"Can't what?"

"Read it! Th-the young master g-gave it to me and I d-don't even know what a-any of it s-says!"

Ah, the book his lord had presented their new employee with over a week ago, telling the story of his namesake. The Legend of Finnian.

"Would you go back to sleep if I were to read some of it to you?" Making deals is how he lives, and those ledgers aren't writing themselves.

"I-It's not the same! Th-the young m-master wanted _me_ to r-read it, but I've tried s-so hard and I just can't!" wails the gardener.

"Of course not, you cannot read by sheer willpower. You must learn."

The boy looks up at him, practically quivering with hope. A Phantomhive gardener does not need to be able to read, they need to be able to kill, and yet-

Sebastian sighs with resignation. He is already tutoring one boy under this roof, what difference will another make?

"We will begin at the beginning. That would be logical, yes? This word here on the front cover spells your name. F-I-N-N-I-A-N, do you see?"

It is not like teaching the young master; Finny is a slow study and needs much guidance. Every night after bedtime below stairs, Sebastian takes a candle and lights their way into the hall and over the pages, along the sentences. Reading cautiously, carefully. Repeat after me. Again. Again.

It takes them weeks and weeks, but eventually Finnian stumbles, breathless, to the end of the last sentence without needing correction. He sits still for a moment, awestruck. The thrill of the new world Sebastian has illuminated for him shines in his eyes. Books upon books upon books. The letters that before seemed so dark to him are now bright with potential.

"I did it!" he cheers, exhilarated. "Thank you so, so much, Mr Sebastian!"

It takes him utterly by surprise when Finny leaps off the bench and throws himself towards him, clamping his arms around him in an embrace that would have broken ribs if he'd been human. The devil is as stiff as a corpse. He has not been hugged this way-openly, innocently, happily-in eight hundred years or more. Perhaps ever. None who knew his true form would be fool enough to come so close.

Finny gabbles his thanks and hugs tight.

 **A/N:** Thanks for reading, please feel free to let me know what you thank!


	3. The Butler, Entrusted

**A/N:** Thank you so much to you lovely people who have reviewed, it fuels me to keeping writing this thing. On with the chapter!

 **The Butler, Entrusted**

"If I asked you to come up to my rooms tonight, would you do it?"

The voice is sweetly husky, rich with confidence, feminine. Red velvet. He had not noticed her come in.

"Madam."

Sebastian turns from where he had been scrupulously arranging china on a mahogany side table to face the doorway, which frames Angelina Dalles' crimson curves. Her visits to the manor are getting rarer, but the London season is yet to start and this weekend has apparently afforded her the time to come by. She sees his sober expression and tinkles a little laugh.

"I thought not. You're much too...professional."

She glides over to his side and shifts her weight companionably onto one hip, giving him a sly sideways smile. She has always been curiously familiar with him.

"Have you ever been in love, Sebastian? Somehow I couldn't imagine it."

"No, Madam. I do not find myself drawn to...pursuits of the heart," he replies blandly.

"Well, I hope for your sake that you never are. It's such fiery madness."

Her smile pinches a little with melancholy. He wonders who she is thinking of, who made such a ragged hole in her. Outside, the autumn is still clinging to the golden skirts of summer.

"I wanted him to come and live with me, you know. Ciel," she says to the window. "I would have had him as my son."

"That is generous of you, Madam."

Scarlet lips go tight. "It isn't. Not really."

The silence holds, serene. They can take the weight of it between them.

"I was the first person to hold him after he was born, did you know that?"

"No," he tells her softly. "I did not."

"He was so tiny. So precious. I could never forget it. Holding him frightened me in case I hurt him, but he seemed happy to be held. And now, he flinches at my touch," she continues, her voice raw. She turns to him, pinning him with a gaze nearly as red as his own. "But not yours."

"Madam?"

"I don't know what happened, Sebastian, to make him so afraid of human hands. And I don't expect you to tell me. But I do know that for whatever reason, you are the exception. He trusts you enough to let you take care of him. And although I will not deny that I wish it had been me, I would like you to know that I am thankful for that."

Sebastian just barely covers his astonishment by laying a gloved hand over the place where his heart should be and bowing slightly. "I will stay by the young master's side until the very end, Madam."

As he lowers his hand, she catches it and squeezes briefly with a rueful smile. Her perfume is rose musk, near misses, second best, making do.

"Thank you. I wanted so badly to take him home with me. But I can be content, as long as I know he feels safe."

 **A/N:** Sorry it's such a short one! I was trying to capture the essence of the conversations we see An have with Sebastian about Ciel in the manga, which are always brief but heartfelt. Please do let me know what you think!


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